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Confessions of the University of Chicago

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As if it wasn’t cluttered enough with luggage and the piles of books that are always there, my living room is now covered with the 5 boxes from Lulu containing 10 copies of Crescat Graffiti each. If you’d like a signed copy (that comes with a button!), here’s the book order page (courtesy of a long wait at Boston’s Logan Airport this evening). If you’re in Chicago and want to get one in person with cash, just drop me an e-mail at quinn – at – crescatgraffiti.com.

This is far from the first blog post draft I’ve half-written since spring 2011, but none of them have made it to the point of me hitting “Publish”. I think that’s a sign that it’s time for Crescat Graffiti to go on hiatus. It’s been a fascinating and delightful five-year project, but falling lower and lower on my to-work-on list since early 2011. What’s more, I’ve moved 2,134 miles away from my muse, the Regenstein Library, to start a new job at UC Berkeley.

I’m still documenting graffiti when I visit new university libraries, and chances are, Berkeley’s libraries will see some repeat visits. Even if I don’t write a blog post about the new material, I’ll be adding it to Flickr and Tumblr.

Find some good university library graffiti? Take a picture and send it to me (quinn – at – crescatgraffiti – dot – com), and I’d be happy to share it on Tumblr.

At least at the moment, the copies at Powell’s up at front, right next to the maps of Chicago, which are next to the Kleenex, which are next to the cash register (see photo). There might be a couple random books stacked on top of it, but it’s there.

If you’re outside Chicago, or want to get one from me directly, you can still get them on this site, but I might not be able to send them until late next week when more copies arrive.

This evening I dropped by the ArtShould Postsecret at UChicago Exhibition, to see how closely the content aligned with the graffiti I’ve collected at UChicago. The similarity between some of the graffiti and the well-known Postsecret project has struck me since I started collecting graffiti. On Flickr, I tagged many of the early images with “Postsecret”, and I suspect that many of the viewers of those early images found them using that term.

There are, of course, some obvious differences between the media of the library wall and a postcard intended for a Postsecret exhibition on campus. Most significantly is the issue of audience. A secret written on a specially-designated Postsecret postcard is meant to be seen as part of the exhibition; a piece of graffiti in the library stacks, at least when I started the project, could only expect to be seen by other students occupying the same study carrel (and not even everyone– I remain amazed at how people can fail to notice details in the world around them, like writing on walls.) The public/private distinction has become less clear over time, as Crescat Graffiti has gained notoriety. I intended the publication of the book in November 2009 to be the culmination and end of this project, fearing that my “going public” with my graffiti-collecting habit might influence potential graffiti-writers. I know it’s had an impact. I’ve found a piece of graffiti written specifically for me (seriously, please, don’t do that, I won’t post it). I also wonder if the recent hijinks of the Advanced Poetry Workshop were in any way inspired by this project (I hope not). I’m still a little surprised every time I’m reminded I have fans, but in a sense it’s only a reminder that what I’m documenting now is in some way different than what I started off documenting.

In any case, this evening’s exhibit featured confessions that were intended to be presented to the public in the context of “art”. The prompt being Postsecret rather than the sorts of things that come to mind when studying, there were significantly fewer complaints about the academic aspects of school. This does not, however, preclude expressions of self-doubt regarding one’s achievement: twopeople were concerned about their qualification for their upcoming jobs. The question of employment seemed like a significant theme overall, also present in a postcard from an almost-PhD who couldn’t find a part-time summer job worth it. In contrast, employment has never been a major theme in the library graffiti, other than in the iconic “This is for six figures and a hot wife“.

There were postcards about sex, of course, but less by way of penis drawings. Race was a more prevalent theme (liking/disliking particular races, concerns about being perceived as racist, etc.) than in the library; while it’s a more common theme in (men’s) bathrooms, the postcards presented it with less venom. That said, maybe more strongly-worded postcards were censored. Particularly interesting was the portrayal of sexuality. I’ve written about homophobia in the graffiti before, but the postcards in the exhibit were devoid of such sentiments, and instead there were a number of postcards expressing surprise at being attracted to someone of the same sex (despite identifying as straight). Again, one wonders whether some degree of censorship was involved in weeding out the sorts of comments that are relatively common in the stacks.

There was at least one postcard that I’d group with the “meta” graffiti (remarking on a marker fetish), and UofC students’ inclination to directly quote literature and song lyrics– a rather rare tendency, looking across a variety of university library graffiti corpora– also appeared in the postcards, with a quote from The Lion King and a response to Cher’s inquiry about belief in love after love.

(6/2/11 addendum: Janel Jin, from the ArtShould Board of Directors, clarified the question of censorship for me: “We received over 200 postcards over the past weeks, and only did not display maybe three or four – these were taken out because they either negatively mentioned another student by their full name, or were simply lacking in content (intentional image/text).” Thanks, Janel!)

Apologies for a silent winter quarter– the graffiti project tends to slide towards hibernation in the winter in general (I took no pictures at all in winter ’09), and it was compounded this year by heaps of stress and moving. Fear not, though, I still went to the stacks weekly, so let’s catch up on what emerged winter ’11. (All links take you Flickr, where you can see or download a large version.)

Marx won a competition between him, Smith, and Wendell Berry. What the basis for the votes was is unclear; I assume “general awesomeness”.

Given the current media frenzy over UChicago Hookups (now eduHookups– they’re going to have a great time with that at Brown), it seems fitting to close this post with a beautiful combination of aspiration and horniness, from the 4th floor women’s bathroom in Cobb, courtesy of Sarah Holzhausen.* “I want to have sex with what I want to become.” Anyone seen a post looking for “my future self, or someone like future me?”

* Yes, I take submissions! E-mail quinn [at] crescatgraffiti [dot] com with photos of university graffiti and where you found it.